Also, why did Axar Patel bowl only three overs?

Karthik Krishnaswamy11-Oct-2020Rishabh Pant was injured, but why did the Delhi Capitals leave out Shimron Hetmyer?The Capitals only have two wicketkeepers in their squad, so Pant’s absence meant Alex Carey necessarily had to play. That meant one of their four overseas players would have to drop out, and with Marcus Stoinis, Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje un-droppables, the Capitals made the difficult decision to leave out Hetmyer despite him being the top-scorer with a 24-ball 45 in their previous game against the Rajasthan Royals.Did Shikhar Dhawan bat too conservatively?With Pant and Hetmyer out, Carey making his IPL debut, and with a bowling allrounder in Axar Patel slotted at No. 7, the Capitals may have been a little worried about their middle and lower order, which might have prompted Dhawan to bat with a little more caution, especially after two early wickets.There’s also a case to be made that Dhawan’s low strike rates are a little different to those of, say, KL Rahul. Where Rahul, this season, seems to be playing within himself, Dhawan has a more limited range of shots and can therefore be contained by good bowling. The Mumbai Indians planned and executed excellently against him, diligently keeping the ball away from his strong zones.But equally, the Mumbai Indians’ innings showed what Dhawan could have done to counteract those plans. Quinton de Kock and Suryakumar Yadav, in particular, made great use of the crease, moving across their stumps or away from them in order to play with the bowlers’ lines and target unguarded areas of the field. There was an example within the Capitals innings too, when Marcus Stoinis gave himself premeditated room to hit Trent Boult for a pair of boundaries either side of mid-off in the 16th over. Dhawan didn’t do enough of this, and finished unbeaten on 69 off 52.How did Krunal Pandya and Rahul Chahar keep the Capitals so quiet?Iyer is a noted six-hitter against any kind of spin bowling. Dhawan is a left-hander and should theoretically thrive against left-arm spinners and legspinners. Krunal is a left-arm spinner, Chahar is a legspinner.Krunal and Chahar bowled the bulk of their overs to these two batsmen and finished with combined figures of 2 for 53 in eight overs, conceding just three boundaries between them. How did they manage it?Axar Patel sent back Rohit Sharma but bowled only three overs•BCCIThis was partly down to the Capitals’ cagey approach through the middle overs but also to some good bowling. Chahar – much like the Kings XI Punjab’s Ravi Bishnoi against left-handers through this season – bowled from over the wicket to Dhawan and angled the ball across him and away from his natural hitting arc while mostly bowling wrong’uns and sliders. To Iyer, he bowled quickly and slightly short of length, making it hard for him to go over the top – especially with the long boundaries in Abu Dhabi – or step out.Krunal bowled back of a length and into the stumps, and occasionally fired one in really full against Dhawan.When Iyer finally decided to go big in the 15th over, he made a bright start, slicing Krunal for a four over point. But the left-armer went back to shorter lengths and straighter lines for the rest of the over, and Iyer couldn’t pull off the big hit. After hitting a one-bounce single to long-on, Iyer tried to go aerial again when he came back on strike, and holed out to deep midwicket.Why did Axar Patel bowl only three overs?Axar has been one of the Capitals’ most valuable players this season – his economy rate before this match was 4.50 – and he bowled two excellent overs in the powerplay, conceding just 12 runs and picking up the wicket of Rohit Sharma. He didn’t bowl too badly when he came back for the 13th over, despite conceding 12 runs – one of the two boundaries in the over came via a misfield from Prithvi Shaw in the deep. So why didn’t he bowl another over?Axar could have bowled the 15th over too, but with the Mumbai Indians needing only 47 from 36 at that stage with eight wickets in hand, the Capitals brought back Kagiso Rabada, probably to try and dismiss either Yadav or Ishan Kishan, both of whom are better players of spin than pace.Rabada went for 14 but sent back Yadav. The Capitals stuck with the medium pace of Marcus Stoinis for the next over, and he did well to get the wicket of the dangerous Hardik Pandya with a cross-seam delivery. With only four overs left thereafter, the Capitals went with the tried-and-tested route of their two best bowlers – Nortje and Rabada – finishing off their quotas in the 17th, 18th and 19th, leaving the 20th for either Axar or Stoinis or Harshal Patel. Stoinis has done the job before this season, so it was he who took the ball with the Mumbai Indians needing seven off six balls.Did the Capitals use their fielders in the right positions?Shaw isn’t the fleetest of fielders, and the Capitals seemed to station him in the so-called “hot zones” at two crucial junctures late in the game. In the 18th over, he was at deep square leg where Kishan’s pull just about cleared him and went over the rope. Shaw was at full stretch, and a taller fielder might have pulled off the catch.In the final over, with three runs required off five balls, Krunal knocked the ball just behind square on the off side and set off for a quick single. Kieron Pollard didn’t want the run initially, and a quicker fielder might have swooped on the ball from backward point and made him pay for the indecision. Shaw, despite going towards his natural right side, failed to make a clean pick-up, and let Pollard off the hook.

All you need is a smartphone and a tripod to find out more about your bowling

Deivarayan Muthu28-Nov-20204:02

Lockie Ferguson: ‘Wanted to put technology in people’s pockets’

Speed is “everything” for Lockie Ferguson. His pace was noted in 2008, when he competed with Jimmy Neesham in a fast-bowling competition on the sidelines of the New Zealand vs England Test at Basin Reserve.Ferguson’s elder brother Mitch Ferguson was also known for his rapid pace back in the day at Auckland Grammar but then slipped through the cracks, and is now a software developer. The Ferguson brothers’ need for speed drove them to develop an application called Machineroad with which bowlers can measure their speeds on their smartphones. In addition to being a pocket speed gun, the app allows you to record your training sessions while providing real-time feedback on lengths and bounce points among other analytics.So, all you need is a smartphone, a tripod set up 1.5 metres high and two metres behind the bowling crease, and “find out more about your bowling”.Watch the cricket on ESPN+

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“It was Mitch’s baby to start with. Fortunately, I’m in cricket as well, so it was a good avenue to get technology this cutting edge into everyday users,” Lockie told ESPNcricinfo during a virtual interaction. “Obviously, as professionals, we get the opportunity to have HawkEye, ball tracking, and pitch mapping and all these sorts of analytics, which help to become a better cricketer and now we’re trying to put that in someone’s pocket.”So, obviously pretty easy with me being a quick bowler and easy alignment for our product there, but certainly from a young age, I wanted to be a quick bowler because my big brother was a fast bowler and I wanted to be faster than him. Off the back of that, I think everyone will probably agree – even talking to some of the batters in the team, getting the app out at training, they’re all charging in and trying to bowl quick. So, it just shows you that there’s a lot of passion for fast bowling and everyone wants to know at some stage how quickly they can bowl.”Mitch drew from his experiences as a raw fast bowler – mismanaging bowling loads and lack of enough awareness about fast bowling – to make the app “hugely scalable” for club cricketers.Lockie Ferguson and Shivam Mavi test out the Machineroad app at the KKR nets•KKR/Machineroad”I guess the main reason behind [creating] the app was some of the stuff that I went through as a young cricketer,” Mitch said. “I was going through the grades and involved in a lot of representative cricket and obviously having quite a few injuries during that time as well. Ultimately, it was kind of based around how we can provide visibility to some of those young players because I definitely missed out on my fair share of opportunities.”You’ve got HawkEye and a range of other pieces of equipment that does enable you to capture some of this data, but one of the biggest things around that is a lot of that equipment is quite expensive, especially when you try to bring that equipment and technology to clubs and lot of other remote areas throughout the world as well. One of the key things that we really wanted to focus on was how we can take that technology, how we can simplify that data.”

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Recently, the Ferguson brothers used the app with the Parnell Plums Women’s side in Auckland, where Maddy Curran clocked 110kph, catching the attention of Northern Districts, who have now called her to their academy.”One of our best [things] happened with the Parnell Women’s team,” Lockie said. “We were out there testing the app with the Parnell Plums – which is a great women’s team in Auckland. Maddy Curran, one of the opening bowlers was bowling on the app and she’s quite quick. It picked it up – she was bowling at almost 110ks – then I posted it on our Machineroad Instagram and my Instagram. And next week, the ND coach got in touch with her and she is now involved with their academy. That might kick-start her career and if we can create more of those stories then that’s awesome.”While the immediate focus is to build engagement and gamification tools in the app to encourage cricketers around the world to challenge themselves against each other, Lockie reckoned it could also help bowlers test their plans at the nets and execute them better in the middle.”In the developing part, one thing Mitch and I talked about was… I hate to quote games, but last year at the World Cup, we were sort of faced up against Steve Smith. So, we were working out a game plan on what my strengths are against a batter like him who is so leg-side dominant and obviously got great plans. So, we sort of talked about this leg-gully option and at the time I wasn’t potentially in a position to be able to do that, but had I had that at training and actually filmed myself working on trying to hit a spot… I’m not always going to bowl that far on the left shoulder – a bumper. Tough to do it in the nets against our batters because they don’t want to face it too much.”But there is an element that I’m trying to create a plan that I think will work, but then how do I train and get real-time feedback? Then, this app is more or less on those lines where you can work on a skill like that [spot bowling] and hopefully, get the wicket or have Martin Guptill catch a one-hander at leg gully .”

The greatest athletes are playing on longer in many sports. de Villiers is doing it in cricket (and so is James Anderson)

Jarrod Kimber14-May-2021AB de Villiers looks wrecked. He’s sweating uncontrollably. There seem to be new veins that weren’t previously visible.He is speaking to the TV crew after one of his innings in the IPL in Chennai, and they are trying to understand how a guy who plays so little cricket stays in such good shape. He’s joking that he didn’t feel fit while batting. He looks like a 37-year-old who offered to do a fun run for charity and now regrets having taken part.In truth, he is the only batter to have conquered the oppressive Chennai surface. He wasn’t just good on this pitch, he played a different form of cricket to everyone else. Rahul Tripathi’s impressive cameos provided him with the next best strike rate among players who made 50 runs there.These are some players with over 50 runs on that wicket: Gayle, Maxwell, Bairstow, Warner, Kohli and Pollard. No first names needed because none are required. And de Villiers clowned them all.ESPNcricinfo LtdRemember, this pitch resembled a balloon slowly losing air. By the second half of the innings it was almost impossible to play a shot on. The scoring rate was 7.38 per over, and batters averaged 15.75 runs. It was easier to bat in the first ten overs, and de Villiers never batted then. He only arrived for the soft-ball section, where he scored at 11.36 runs per over and averaged 62.5.The 48 from 27 balls that made him sweat all over the microphone was his first professional innings since November 6 last year.It is not that de Villiers is great, because we know that. It is not that de Villiers is consistently great – that too is quite obvious now. It’s that de Villiers is managing to be this good at T20 cricket – a fickle and random sport – in the world’s toughest league, without really playing anywhere else, at 37.

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In his book, Ricky Ponting admitted that he batted on too long. His last few years were incredibly barren for a player of his talent. But in his last full year of Test cricket, he scored 134 and 221 against India. At his best, Ponting was still someone who could make 200 runs in a Test. But from 2009 until he retired, he averaged 37.76 in Tests. That’s low by anyone’s standards, but more so if over the previous nine years you averaged over 60.Related

• 'Reward for longevity and an excellent career'

• AB de Villiers was 'concerned' about taking away another player's spot, reveals Mark Boucher

• 'Superhuman' de Villiers steps into his box and out of this world

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• AB de Villiers: A different eye, a different mind (2018)

This is what you expect from a top player in their late 30s. The peaks rarely stop but their troughs just get deeper and occur more frequently. They can still do what they do, but not as often.There was a match in this year’s IPL where MS Dhoni came out and hit 17 from eight balls. It was the sort of innings you might have seen him play more than a decade ago. It wasn’t long and two of the fours were edged but it had a significant impact on the innings. It’s also the only knock of the four he played this year where he had a strike rate over 150. In 12 innings in the last campaign, he only scored at a strike rate of over 150 three times.Dhoni is not the player he once was; in the 2018 and 2019 IPL seasons he averaged 79.18 while striking at 143. This last season and a half, it’s been 21.54 and 117. But even last season, there were little cameos of 29 from 17 and 21 from 13. For Dhoni, this could just be a two-season dip – that is, more of a one-year dip. It’s possible this isn’t the end of old Dhoni.But this is generally how players curve with age. They can still do what they once did, just not as often. Or at least, this is how they are supposed to age.There is one thing that de Villiers and Dhoni share other than both being in their late 30s: both play little outside of the IPL. Dhoni hasn’t played anything outside the IPL since the 2019 World Cup semi-final. And de Villiers’ last non-IPL cricket was at the start of 2020. Leading up to that, he played the PSL, Mzansi Super League, T20 Blast and Big Bash. He didn’t play those leagues last year because of Covid, and yet, twice he has rocked up to the toughest league in the world and smoked everyone.Since the 2020 IPL, MS Dhoni hasn’t quite looked like his old batting self, although there are still glimpses of his self-assured style from time to time•Arjun Singh/BCCIFor many of the smaller T20 tournaments around the world, you turn up late if you are a star player, spend a bit of time in the nets and then hit the first ground pretty raw. The IPL is better than this – even star players play in intra-club warm-ups and other matches, and there is a longer lead-in. Players who have gone from IPL to IPL with nothing in between can struggle. At the end of his T20 career, Shane Watson would play club cricket just to keep his eye in for the IPL. Many of the older batters have said what they found toughest was having no cricket in between. That – so far at least – has not seemed to matter to de Villiers. His preparation coming into each of the last two IPLs has been superb. Whatever he is doing between tournaments is working.

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Tennis players are getting older. It would be hard to watch professional tennis now and not feel that way. Before, 14-year-old girls would sweep to the top of the rankings and burn out by their early 20s. The men started later and fared better, but it was not a sport for people over 30. That is not the case anymore.From 1980 until 2005 there were 15 teenage winners of Grand Slams; there have been two in the 16 years since. Among the men there are two players in the top 20 under 22, and seven over 30. There are two players over 30 in the women’s top 20, and one teenager.But while it might seem tennis is getting older, in 2017 a blogger called Matt wrote about how the top 100 is getting older, but the top 1000 is more or less the same average age as it has been since the mid-’80s. That is, there are relatively more older players among the best players in the game than there are among the rest.The reasons are quite simple. Most players drop out if they are not in the top 100. Those who succeed make a lot of money and hire teams to look after every single part of their life. Meaning that the normal ageing curve for an athlete does not apply to Serena Williams or Roger Federer, who are both 39.Golden girl: Serena Williams has won ten of her 23 majors after turning 30•Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesAnd this isn’t just a tennis thing. LeBron James won a title last year at 36, an age when basketballers, whose trade depends on athleticism and power, are well beyond their best. Once known as Air Canada for his high leaping, Vince Carter retired from the NBA at 43.Incredible performers in high-paying sports are staying on longer. Thirty used to be the normal age for when results began to decline; that seems to have been pushed to 35 for the super-talented. And some like NFL player Tom Brady want to see just how far they can push that number.Cricket’s new-found love of the free market means that players have financial incentives to keep playing. And cricket has many skills that age better than some sports. Batting and spin bowling are certainly two parts of the game where we almost expect players to go on past where professional athletes in other sports can. Peak batting age is 27-29 according to modern data, and in baseball, hitters start to decline at 29.Yet Graham Gooch played his final Test when he was 41. Spinners often age even better. Clarrie Grimmett started his Test career at 33, while Rangana Herath played almost his entire career in his 30s. Recently Australia’s two Brads, Hogg and Hodge, played into their late forties. But they might not have done so in previous eras. Hogg had already retired when he realised his form of mystery was worth money.(I have left Pakistani cricketers out of this article as their ages don’t abide by the laws of sport or nature. Though I love the fact that they just gave a debut to a 36-year-old seamer.)But really, Jimmy Anderson is the best example. This was him talking to the the other day: “You draw comfort from seeing people across other sports, like Zlatan Ibrahimovic getting another contract at Milan [aged 39], Tom Brady winning his seventh Super Bowl at 43, Roger Federer [39] overcoming injuries or Chris Thompson qualifying for the Olympic marathon at 40. It makes you think, why should I start slowing down?”England have invested a lot of money and other resources in keeping James Anderson in top shape for five-day cricket•Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesEngland at one point almost ruined Anderson by changing his natural action and then later by overbowling him. But since then has any fast bowler ever had the amount of science and support he has had?As Tim Wigmore noted in the a few years ago, professionally Anderson has bowled not that many more balls than Darren Gough, but the ECB has made sure what he does bowl is for England, not in domestic cricket. They track his performance when he trains, and again on the field with health monitors. They have a collection of analysts allowing Anderson access to information about opposition weaknesses. They are at the forefront in terms of rest and rotation of their bowlers. Their dietary guidelines are detailed. England currently think about their bowlers more like how baseball handles pitchers. It’s no surprise they have managed to get so many deliveries out of Anderson – and Stuart Broad.Dale Steyn recently said Anderson was more skilful than him. Steyn relied on incredible fast-twitch fibres, fierce competitiveness, smarts and athleticism. Anderson has never matched Steyn physically, even if he is a remarkable athlete in his own right. His main trade is what he can do laterally with the ball. As long as England can keep him over 83 miles per hour, with his skills and decision-making ability, why would he not keep taking wickets?Before this era of cricket – and really, sport – athletes played in what we thought their peak years were and then disappeared when their bodies or love of the game gave way. Now, for the likes of Brady, Williams and James, who aren’t just athletes but lifestyle brands, it makes sense to invest as much as they can in their bodies because these are likely to be their peak earning years. When the money in professional sport was just good, in the days when players, writers and broadcasters all made around the same wage, there wasn’t the money – or science – for you to push into your 40s.Team athletes like Brady and James now prepare like players from individual sports. They build support networks around themselves: psychologists, decision-making specialists, analysts, eye trainers, and whoever else they need. Cricket isn’t quite there but many top players have their own dieticians, specialist coach, trainers and other support staff.ABD: middle-aged but not middling•Arjun Singh/BCCIOf course if you are lucky, your team can provide a lot of this for you. In another era England would have phased Anderson out and moved on to Chris Woakes. But now they have invested all this time and money in their greatest modern bowler, he helps them win, and success gets them more fans. Think about how long it took England to find one Anderson. If this was your business, you would spend all your money on two things: trying to find another, and trying to keep the first one on the field. This is where modern sports are. Players who are just good will be moved on, greats will be nursed as long as they can be.Recently writer David Epstein described ageing in athletes as essentially a choice. Research suggests that you can delay the inevitable, as many rich athletes are doing, by staying active. Of course there are things we can’t stop from slowing down, as Epstein notes. Reaction speed and power, for example. The fast-twitch muscle fibres responsible for them starts to disappear. That explains why Steyn might have deteriorated quicker than Jimmy Anderson. But you might think that simple reaction times are essential in batting, so that should affect batting into old age, but it doesn’t. And part of the reason is that batting isn’t just about reaction time.In fact, it’s impossible to react to a ball being bowled at 90mph. Batters don’t do that; instead, they read the field, the bowler, the ball as it’s released, and they use all that information to get into the right area to play. Even as their reaction times slow and their eyesight fades, they can face quick bowling. Not as well as in their prime, but Gooch, Hodge and others have done this.Now think about peak de Villiers. Perhaps Steven Smith, Virat Kohli, Joe Root and Kane Williamson went past him as great batters. But at least part of that was because of de Villiers retiring from, or barely playing, international cricket. At his best, as great as the others were, there was probably no other player who was in position to play a ball as early as him. de Villiers slows the game down to his speed. In Centurion, when Mitchell Johnson was destroying South Africa, de Villiers was playing him like he was Boris, not Mitchell.It is not just reaction time and eyesight that slow down – so do the movements of batters. Their bodies degrade. Find any old athlete and ask them how many anti-inflammatories they take. As we said earlier, de Villiers is playing less cricket than other great players do, and has done for a long time. He has over 736 first-class, List A and T20 games; Dhoni is up at 892. de Villiers last had a full international career in 2014. His body shouldn’t have the wear and tear of a 37-year-old player. Between 2014 and 2018, when he started ramping down, he averaged something like 63 days of cricket a year. Since the start of 2019, he has played 71 in total. Some of that is because of Covid.ESPNcricinfo LtdBut why would he want to play any other leagues now? We do not know what his actual salary is at RCB, nor the advertising and promotions income that boosts it. But that amount might well double what he can pick up in all other leagues. That means if he uses a certain percentage of his earnings on dieticians, physicians, trainers, yoga, and someone to take off his cape after innings, he could play on at a high level. It could mean one, or two, extra years of peak IPL form – which would mean more money than playing as much cricket as he can and burning out. There will be an expiration date but he has the ability, skill, finances and work ethic to push this as far forward as possible.The other problem is form, especially in T20, which can be so fickle. A season is so short, you can get run out a few times, or get stuck, and your next contract will be affected. And so maybe he can’t only play the IPL and stay in that kind of form. He could always warm up every year with games in the MSL or Big Bash League, which both occur a few months before the IPL. And for the rest of the year let his body recover while staying at the best level of fitness he can.de Villiers doesn’t let himself go; he stays fit. He turned up to this IPL having worked hard. A lot of things can go wrong for any athlete once they pass 35. Their body doesn’t recover from injuries the same way as before. And there is always the chance that he wakes up one day and has had enough mentally.After that innings in Chennai, de Villiers played two more incredible knocks, of the kind that would be career-defining for normal players. We’ll hardly remember them with his 25 player-of-the match awards in the IPL. In the history of this league there are 39 players with over 2000 runs. Among them, de Villiers has the third-highest average and second-highest strike rate. There is no real debate over him being the best batter in IPL history. He plays the game his way.de Villiers already slows the game down. If there is any batter who can slow ageing down, it would be him.

And who has scored the most fifties before bringing up their maiden Test hundred?

Steven Lynch30-Mar-2021In the recent ODIs, India’s Pandya brothers opposed the Currans of England. How often has this happened in international cricket? asked Aravind Vissamsetty from Denmark, among others
The appearance of Hardik and Krunal Pandya in opposition to Sam and Tom Curran in the first ODI between India and England in Pune was the first time two brothers had faced two others in a one-day international since November 2014, when Nadeem and Irfan Ahmed of Hong Kong played against Charles and Chris Amini of Papua New Guinea in Townsville. In March 2016, however, Kevin and Niall O’Brien of Ireland opposed Ben and Tom Cooper of Netherlands in Dharamsala. The last such occurrence in a Test was in October 1999, when Andy and Grant Flower of Zimbabwe faced Mark and Steve Waugh of Australia in Harare.In all, Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team unearthed 136 instances of two brothers on opposite sides in all internationals, many obviously involving the Flowers and the Waughs, and more recently various members of Pakistan’s Akmal family. The first such instance came in a Test match in January 1958, when Denis and Eric Atkinson of West Indies opposed Hanif and Wazir Mohammad of Pakistan in Bridgetown (the match in which Hanif made 337 in 970 minutes in the follow-on). The second instance, nearly 13 years later in December 1972, involved the other two Test-playing Mohammad brothers – Mushtaq and Sadiq faced Greg and Ian Chappell of Australia in Adelaide.Was Krunal Pandya’s fifty in Pune the fastest by anyone in their one-day international debut? asked Mishal Ahmed from India
Krunal Pandya hurtled to his half-century in just 26 balls on his debut in the first one-day international in Pune last week. The previous-fastest debut half-centuries both took nine balls longer, so Krunal beat them with some ease. Roland Butcher sparkled to 50 in 35 balls for England against Australia at Edgbaston in 1980, while John Morris matched his 35-ball effort for England against New Zealand in Adelaide in 1990-91. Neither Butcher nor Morris played many more ODIs, but first impressions suggest Krunal Pandya should have a rather longer international career.Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi reached 50 in just 18 balls – on the way to 102 from 40 – in his first one-day international innings, against Sri Lanka in Nairobi in 1996-97. But he had already played one ODI, without batting, so it wasn’t actually his debut match.In a recent Sheffield Shield game, Western Australia had three individual centuries in a total of 391. Have there been any lower first-class totals with three centurions? asked Dechlan Brennan from Australia
In that peculiar-looking scorecard at the WACA last week, Western Australia’s total of 391 for 9 declared against Victoria included 113 from opener Cameron Bancroft, then 115 from wicketkeeper Josh Inglis at No. 7, and an unbeaten 102 from No. 8 Joel Paris.It turns out that the lowest first-class total to include three individual centuries is just 349, by Karnataka in a Ranji Trophy quarter-final against Uttar Pradesh in Bengaluru in 2013-14. That’s an even stranger scorecard: opener Robin Uthappa, and Nos. 5 and 6, Karun Nair and Chidambaram Gautam, made exactly 100, while the three batsmen in between all made ducks (there were five in the innings).Trevor Goddard had 15 fifties before his maiden Test century•Getty ImagesNiroshan Dickwella has now reached 50 on 17 occasions in Tests without converting any of them to a century, which I believe is a record. But did anyone score more fifties before managing to bring up their maiden century? asked Matt Tyter from England
You’re right that Niroshan Dickwella’s near-miss 96 for Sri Lanka against West Indies in Antigua last week was his 17th half-century in Tests without a hundred, putting him clear of Chetan Chauhan on that list.The most fifties in Tests before scoring a hundred remains 15, by two former captains: Trevor Goddard had 15 half-centuries before making 112 for South Africa against England in Johannesburg in 1964-65, while Bob Simpson had 15 scores between 50 and 99 before really making sure with 311 for Australia against England at Old Trafford in 1964, the first of his eventual ten Test tons (Goddard made just the one).Why is the women’s domestic one-day competition in Australia called the Ruth Preedy Cup? asked Ahmed Essof from Australia
I couldn’t find this at first, and briefly wondered if someone couldn’t spell the surname of the former England player Ruth Prideaux, married to fellow England player, Roger Prideaux, one of the few husband-and-wife Test cricketers. But although I was being mischievous, I was in the right area, as it was indeed down to a mis-spelling – the competition is actually named after the former New South Wales player Ruth Preddey, who took part in the first interstate women’s match in Australia, against Victoria in 1910. According to Cricket NSW, Preddey “was the manager of the first Australian women’s team, and held numerous positions in state and national programmes”. The women’s National Cricket League trophy was renamed in her honour in 1972-73. She died in 1985, aged 94.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

Jonny Bairstow will find sympathy from England’s WhatsApp chat after his ‘freak golfing injury’

Andrew Miller26-May-2021 • Updated on 02-Sep-2022Cricket has a long and proud tradition of improbable injuries, from Chris Old popping a rib while sneezing, to Trevor Franklin being run over by a luggage trolley at Gatwick Airport. And as Jonny Bairstow braces for a lengthy spell on the sidelines after a “freak golf injury”, he’ll have no shortage of sympathy on the England WhatsApp group, where self-inflicted tales of woe abound…Ben Stokes (March 2014)
Incident: Punched a locker



Archer toured India despite his unusual injury•Getty ImagesSeven years on from one self-inflicted wound, Dr Doug Campbell, a hand and wrist specialist in Leeds, was peering into another. “This is going to sound like an awful conspiracy and I know what’s going to happen on Twitter straight away when I say this,” Ashley Giles, England’s director of cricket, told the BBC. “But it’s true, it’s not a conspiracy.” Yep, back in January 2021, Jofra Archer had been cleaning a tropical fish tank in the bath-tub of his flat at Hove, when it had slipped from his fingers and shattered, leaving fragments of glass embedded in his right middle finger. The injury healed sufficiently for Archer to play in two Tests and five T20Is against India, but when he flew home to undergo further treatment on his troublesome elbow, England seized the chance to clean out the wound, which appeared to have healed fully by the time he was booked back in for elbow surgery in May. That elbow, sadly, has proved more harder to resolve.James Anderson (October 2010)
Incident: Boxing match in Bavarian forest







Sidelined: Three weeksCrawley made it to the Chennai nets at the second attempt, at least•BCCIIt’s not often that the word “socks” is the stand-out detail in an injury update. But it’s surely no coincidence that the ECB chose to highlight Foakes’ woolly-footedness when confirming his dressing-room mishap, given what happened when Zak Crawley was wearing his studs indoors in India three months earlier. On the eve of the first Test at Chennai – and the eve of his 23rd birthday, for that matter – Crawley had been walking out to the nets when he lost his footing on a marble floor that one team insider likened to a “skating rink”. The team had placed towels along most of the route to the door, but evidently not enough of them, and Crawley ended up being ruled out for two Tests after suffering a sprained wrist and joint irritation.Jason Roy (August 2018)
Incident: Bat thrown to floor
Injury: Bat rebound to face
Sidelined: One matchSelf-inflicted cricket fails come in all shapes and sizes•Getty ImagesBat-flinging tantrums are two-a-penny at all levels of cricket – what better target of a workman’s ire than his tool, so to speak? And usually the damage is limited to the implement itself, or at worst, the fixtures and fittings (just ask Matt Prior). But at the Kia Oval in August 2018, Jason Roy surpassed himself in a moment of self-defeating slapstick. Surrey’s hopes of progression in the Vitality Blast were already sliding down the pan when he was done in flight by Hampshire’s Afghan spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman and bowled for a first-ball duck. In fury he flung his bat to the floor, only for it to rebound and whack him in the face, ruling him out of their do-or-die final group fixture against Glamorgan. “I’m extremely embarrassed and apologetic to my team-mates and fans for this moment of stupidity,” Roy said in a statement. In the event, his absence mattered not. Rain wrecked the group decider, and both teams were eliminated.This article was first published in May 2021, then updated after Bairstow’s golfing injury

Left-arm wristspinner has developed the hard way to seize chance with Birmingham Bears

Matt Roller21-Jun-2021There is no good time to test positive for Covid-19 but for Jake Lintott, Sunday was a particularly frustrating one. He is due to miss at least three Birmingham Bears fixtures in the Vitality Blast while self-isolating, and the fact that the first ended in defeat underlined his importance to the side since the start of last year, during which time he has been their leading wicket-taker.Lintott, a 28-year-old left-arm wristspinner who bowls nearly as many googlies as stock balls, had played three T20s for Gloucestershire in 2018 and a single one for Hampshire the year before, but as he headed into his late 20s, appeared destined for a career playing club, minor counties and second-team cricket, which he combined with a job as director of cricket at Queen’s College, Taunton. His success for the Bears – Warwickshire’s T20 moniker – in the Blast seemed a long way off 15 months ago.Lintott had been due to travel to La Manga on Warwickshire’s pre-season tour last March after Ian Westwood, the 2nd XI coach, had talked him up following some impressive performances the previous summer, but when the UK went into lockdown, he was furloughed from his job and uncertain about what lay ahead.Related

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“I was in a bit of a grey area,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “I didn’t know where counties were going to come out financially at the end of it, and everything was a bit uncertain. When I got furloughed from the school job, I tried to use lockdown as a big opportunity to focus on me and invest as much time as I wanted to in myself.Having struggled to find time to focus on his fitness while working during the week and playing every weekend, Lintott took up running and lost nearly three stone (18kg). “When you’re in a full-time working environment, it can be really hard to find time for yourself. I’ve always moved quite well, even as a biggish lad, but to lose weight, it means the perception disappears and it’s another box ticked. I think it was the last thing I had to do [to earn a contract].”He had spent time on Zoom with Graeme Welch, the club’s bowling coach, working on his action – “it sounds bizarre that he was coaching me through a computer screen” – but turned up to a second-team game before the Blast and left the coaching staff taken aback: “I think I looked like a completely different person, having lost all that weight.”On the first day of the 2020 group stage, he signed a short-term contract to cover the five weeks of Blast cricket, which he combined with his job at Queen’s, regularly driving 130 miles up to Edgbaston and then 130 more back down to Taunton. While the Bears missed out on the quarter-finals after letting a winning position slip against Northamptonshire in their final group game, Lintott’s return – 10 wickets in nine games, with an economy rate of just 6.30 – marked him out as one of the season’s breakout stars.After discussions over the winter – during which time he briefly trained with Jack Leach while working as a pathway spin coach for Somerset – Warwickshire offered him his first professional deal in February, which he is combining with his job at Queen’s this season. He took eight wickets in his first five games in the Blast and since 2020, only three spinners – Matt Parkinson, Danny Briggs and Dan Moriarty – have taken more wickets in the competition; all three have a higher average and economy rate than Lintott.ESPNcricinfo Ltd”I’ve trained a couple of days a week since February up in Birmingham: travelled up, stayed overnight, two days of training, back to the school,” he said. “To be honest, I’ve had no days off since April. It’s tough work but it’s all worth it.”For a while I felt like I’d been a bit unfairly treated. It’s quite hard to break into the county system once you’ve reached a certain age, and that was a good example of it. I felt like I was good enough but my age was holding me back. Because I do lots of coaching I understand that people develop at different ages, but I’m not sure the system here allows players to come in late. The fact I’m different and you see how big wristspin has become in T20 has always kept me going but it has taken a lot of determination. It would have been easy just to give up.”Naturally, he attributes much of his success to his novelty factor. Tabraiz Shamsi, Kuldeep Yadav, Zahir Khan and Noor Ahmad have made reputations for themselves around the world, and the percentage of balls bowled by left-arm wristspinners in T20s around the world has grown fourfold over the last eight years, according to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data. But they remain as rare as Fabergé eggs in England, a graveyard for unorthodoxy: Lintott is already the all-time leading wicket-taker among left-arm wristspinners in the Blast’s history.”I think I’m the only contracted one in the country,” he said. “D’Arcy Short does it for Hampshire on a part-time basis and there are young lads in the academies at Northants [Freddie Heldreich] and Yorkshire [Sam Wisniewski] but there’s really not much of it about. That’s definitely an advantage: it’s just different, isn’t it? And that’s a big thing in T20, being unpredictable. It makes me harder for batters to line up, because they’re not used to it. It’s good fun, as much as anything.”While Lintott has had to put up with various coaches suggesting he revert to bowling left-arm orthodox, wristspin has always come naturally to him. When he was nine years old, he naturally bowled out the back of his hand while masquerading as a seamer, and once he had realised wristspin was a viable option, he pursued it seriously. “It’s nice to be able to spin the ball both ways. That’s the best thing about it: my job is to take wickets and make batters look a bit silly.”

“I’m a really ambitious guy and want to take my cricket as far as I possibly can. That’s shown in how hard I’ve had to work to get here”Jake Lintott

The arrival of Briggs, the slow left-armer who is the Blast’s all-time leading wicket-taker, at Warwickshire has worked in his favour, with their bowling styles and personalities naturally complementing each other. “I’m quite emotional and eccentric and like to get into the battle, whereas he’s chilled and level-headed. He never really gets hit which means players have to start coming hard at me; that brings me into the game, spinning it both ways.”I’ve been working on being more effective to left-handers: generally people think of me as spinning the ball away from them and into right-handers, but I bowl a lot of googlies – near enough a 50:50 split. With right-handers trying to slog me leg-side, I get wickets and dot balls going across them, whereas with left-handers, my legspinner doesn’t rip quite as much as my googly, just because of my angles. I make it a big part of my routine to do analysis on where opposition batters like to hit boundaries, and where I can get dot balls to them.”Things have clicked for the Bears so far, joint-top of the North Group halfway through the group stage, with two players in particular standing out for Lintott. “I’m obviously biased, but how Sam Hain has not played for England is remarkable: he’s easily the best white-ball batter in the country at the moment. Carlos Brathwaite has added a lot to the group as an overseas player, too – in terms of character, and obviously match-winning performances with bat and ball.”It was Brathwaite, a Manchester United fan, who came up with the idea for Lintott’s newly-minted celebration: fists together with the thumb and forefinger pointing out to make a ‘J’ and an ‘L’, evoking midfielder Jesse Lingard’s trademark ‘J-Lingz’ pose. “A few lads got their hair cut before we were on Sky but I don’t need to worry about that… I guess T20’s all about fun, isn’t it?”Propelling the Bears to a top-two finish in North Group after returning from self-isolation is his immediate focus, with a ‘wildcard’ spot in the Hundred or opportunities with Warwickshire in the Royal London Cup potentially down the line. “I know if I keep taking wickets I’ll be in with a shout,” he said. “I’m a really ambitious guy and want to take my cricket as far as I possibly can. That’s shown in how hard I’ve had to work to get here. I’m just happy to finally be settled with a county: I’ve got three years to invest in Warwickshire, because they have invested in me.”

Find out if your favourite performer made it to our final XI for the T20 World Cup

Deivarayan Muthu and Matt Roller15-Nov-20211. Jos Buttler (England, wicketkeeper)
England’s most important player in their run to the semi-finals. Buttler played two of the tournament’s best innings in the space of three nights and the contrast between them showed his versatility: he took Australia’s attack for 71 not out off 32 balls in Dubai, nailing five sixes into the stands, then dug deep on a low Sharjah pitch to make a comparatively slow-burning 101 not out off 67 balls – his maiden T20I hundred.2. David Warner (Australia)
Came into the tournament with a point to prove after the fiasco that was his IPL season with Sunrisers Hyderabad – and proved it emphatically. Capitalised on an early reprieve to make 65 against Sri Lanka then hammered 89 not out in a comfortable chase against West Indies to ensure Australia’s progress. Seized the initiative in the semi-final, setting up a successful chase with 49 off 30 against Pakistan and then helped secure the title with a punchy 53 against New Zealand in the final.3. Babar Azam (Pakistan, captain)
Nobody scored more runs than Babar in this T20 World Cup and although his safety-first approach came into sharp focus during Pakistan’s semi-final defeat to Australia, there is still room for an anchor in this XI on UAE tracks. He peeled off half-centuries against India, Afghanistan, Namibia and Scotland. His unbeaten 68 in Pakistan’s tournament opener helped them beat India for the first time in World Cups in their 13th attempt, and set the scene for the team’s unbeaten run in the Super 12s.ESPNcricinfo Ltd4. Mitchell Marsh (Australia)
Among the most maligned players in modern cricket, Marsh made his haters fall in love with him by delivering Australia their maiden T20 World Cup title. After being benched for Australia’s first two games of the competition, he stepped up admirably in their last two games. In the semi-final against Pakistan, he made a cameo of 28 off 22 balls and then in the final against New Zealand, he played a starring role. The way he took down spin, which has been his nemesis in the past, was a sign of his evolution as a batter.5. Charith Asalanka (Sri Lanka)
The 24-year-old had played just three T20Is before the T20 World Cup, where he emerged as the breakout star. He is fearless and can give the ball a good ol’ whack, as Bangladesh found out in Sharjah and then West Indies in Abu Dhabi. He was particularly strong against spin in the competition, hitting 104 runs off 66 balls at a strike rate of 157.57.Moeen was one of the main men in this competition for England•Francois Nel/Getty Images6. Moeen Ali (England)
After playing only a peripheral role in England’s T20I sides in the past, Moeen became one of the main men in this competition. He fronted up to bowl tough overs in the powerplay, a phase in which he picked up five of his seven wickets at an economy rate of 5.72. Moeen also played his part with the bat. After sliding up the order to No. 3, he scored 37 off 27 balls against South Africa and followed it with an unbeaten 51 off 37 in the semi-final. England’s spin-hitter took on Ish Sodhi and his presence kept Mitchell Santner away from the attack, but Daryl Mitchell and Jimmy Neesham eventually combined to best him.7. Wanindu Hasaranga (Sri Lanka)
The World Cup’s leading wicket-taker and Sri Lanka’s new superstar, with fluorescent boots, gold chains and a rockstar persona. Hasaranga took at least one wicket in seven of his eight games and his googly – which he bowled significantly more than his legbreak – was near-impossible to pick, accounting for 15 of his 16 wickets. Took one of the tournament’s three hat-tricks against South Africa in Sharjah and chipped in with the bat: he made 71 as a pinch-hitting No. 5 against Ireland, then gave England a scare from No. 7.8. Josh Hazlewood (Australia)
Hazlewood played all of two T20Is between March 2016 and July 2021 but reinvented himself in white-ball cricket so much that he won the IPL and T20 World Cup titles in a space of four weeks, in the Emirates. He married his Test-match strengths – length-and-length bowling – with cutters into the pitch and knuckle balls to pin down batters in the powerplay. He got rid of three of New Zealand’s top four, including Kane Williamson, to set up Australia’s dominant victory in the final.Zampa conceded over six runs an over only on two occasions•AFP/Getty Images9. Adam Zampa (Australia)
Zampa picked up at least one wicket in each of the seven matches and conceded over six runs an over only twice. He hit unhittable lengths in the middle overs and when batters tried to upset him, he brought out his variations – wrong’un, slider and topspinner. His hauls in this tournament are made all the more remarkable by his training period immediately before when Covid-19 restrictions rendered him unable to use Cricket Australia or even New South Wales’ training facilities, leaving him to bowl at teenagers in the nets near his home in Byron Bay.10. Trent Boult (New Zealand)
After not playing a single game in the 2016 T20 World Cup in India, Boult headlined New Zealand’s progress to their first-ever final five years later in the UAE. He was not only New Zealand’s highest wicket-taker, but also their most economical operator – all of this while bowling upfront and at the death. When the ball did swing, Boult was potent and when it didn’t, he smartly took pace off and bowled cross-seamers to still pose questions to the batters.11. Anrich Nortje (South Africa)
He hurried the batters with his rapid pace and bounce, skills that have served him well in the past in the IPL in the UAE. His improved control over the legcutter has now transformed him into a more versatile bowler in T20 cricket. Picked up at least one wicket in each of his six matches, adapting well to all the three venues. His economy rate of 5.37 is the only second to Jasprit Bumrah among fast bowlers who have bowled at least 15 overs in the tournament.

His biggest achievement has been his ability to consistently take wickets in Australia, a country which has generally been inhospitable to spinners

S Rajesh11-Dec-2021Of the 17 bowlers now in this club, seven are spinners, five of them from the subcontinent. This means Lyon is in an exclusive club of two with countryman Shane Warne as the only spinners from outside Asia to take 400 Test wickets. That is a remarkable achievement, given how rare it is for non-Asian spinners to play long enough and be successful enough, not to mention playing a lot on unhelpful pitches, to achieve this milestone.ESPNcricinfo LtdLyon started his Test career with a wicket off his first ball, and five in his first innings, and while it hasn’t all been smooth sailing over the next decade, it has largely been characterised by consistency and control: in the ten years from 2011 to 2020, only twice has his annual average exceeded 35. (He currently averages 51.44 in 2021, but he is only playing his third Test this year.)Related

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The 400-wicket landmark is just reward for that consistency. Over the last four decades, it has been especially difficult for non-Asian spinners to achieve success over an extended period of time. Since 1980, only four have taken 250-plus wickets, five have breached the 200 mark, and just seven have more than 150. Admittedly, conditions in Australia don’t make the spinner as redundant as they do sometimes in England, New Zealand or South Africa, but even so, these are all teams whose bowling attacks revolve around pace. Spinners in these line-ups have usually had much shorter careers. Warne was a genius, and in a league of his own, but for the rest, it has generally been a struggle to find a regular place in Test line-ups.Lyon has generally played as a member of a four-bowler combination, and has picked up nearly a quarter of the bowler wickets. His 23.4% sits well when compared to the other fingerspinners in the group. Warne and Stuart MacGill have higher percentages, but MacGill played only 44 Tests, while Graeme Swann took 25.9% of England’s wickets in the 60 Tests he played. For comparison, R Ashwin has taken 31% of India’s bowler wickets in the 81 Tests he has played, while the percentages for Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble are 26.3 and 30.7 respectively. Rangana Herath took 30% of Sri Lanka’s wickets in the 93 Tests he played, but all those numbers pale when compared with Muttiah Muralitharan’s 40.4%.